Selected early plays
Автор:
Чехов АнтонЖанр:
Драматургия;Серия:
3Дата добавления:
2013-11-16Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
24Драматургия стр.3
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Автор:
Luigi PirandelloЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-18Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
21
Description
Six Characters in Search of an Author (Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore) is an Italian three-act play written by Luigi Pirandello in 1921, considered as one of the earliest examples of absurdist theatre. It’s a play within a play that deals with perceptions of reality and illusion, and plays with the ideas of identity and relative truths.
The plot features an acting company who have gathered to rehearse another play by Pirandello, when they’re interrupted by 6 “characters” who arrive in search of their author. They immediately clash with the manager who at first assumes they’re mad. But, as the play progresses, the manager slowly shifts his...
Description
The first three acts of Molière’s Tartuffe were first performed for Louis XIV in 1664, but the play was almost immediately suppressed—not because the King disliked it, but because the church resented the insinuation that the pious were frauds. After several different versions were written and performed privately, Tartuffe was eventually published in its final five-act form in 1669.
A comic tale of man taken in by a sanctimonious scoundrel, the characters of Tartuffe, Elmire, and Orgon are considered among some of the great classical theater roles. As the family strives to convince the patriarch that Tartuffe is a religious fraud, the play ultimately focuses on...
The Alchemist
Автор:
Ben JonsonЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-18Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
29
Description
First performed in 1610, The Alchemist is one of Ben Jonson’s greatest comedies. Written for the King’s Men—the acting company to which Shakespeare belonged—it was first performed in Oxford because the playhouses in London were closed due to the plague. It was an immediate success and has remained a popular staple ever since.
The play centers around a con man, his female accomplice, and a roguish butler who uses his master’s house to gull a series of victims out of their money and goods. Jonson uses the play to satirize as many people as he can—pompous lords, greedy commoners, and self-righteous...
The Bride of Messina (play)
Автор:
Schiller FriedrichЖанр:
Драматургия;Серия:
3Дата добавления:
2013-11-28Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
48
The Comedy of Errors
Автор:
William ShakespeareЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-18Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
16
Description
The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s earliest and shortest plays. This comedy utilizes slapstick humor, word play, and mistaken identities to create a series of farcical accidents. Over time, the play’s title has become an idiom used to describe “an event or series of events made ridiculous by the number of errors that were made throughout.”
In Ephesus, the law forbids entry to any merchants from Syracuse, and if they are discovered within the city, they must pay a thousand marks or be put to death. Aegeon, an old Syracusian merchant, is arrested and Solinus, the Duke of Ephesus, listens to his story of coming to the city. Long ago, Aegeon was on a sea...
The Country Wife
Автор:
William WycherleyЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-17Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
34
Description
The Country Wife was first performed in January 1672 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. It traces several plot lines, the principle of which follows notorious rake Harry Horner’s attempt to carry on affairs by spreading a rumor that he was now a eunuch and no longer a threat to any man’s wife. It was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time, having several notorious scenes filled with extended sexual innuendo and women carousing, singing riotous songs, and behaving exactly like their male counterparts.
With the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the eighteen year ban on theater imposed by the Puritans was lifted. Charles II’s time in France had nurtured a fascination with the stage and, with his...
The Death of Wallenstein (play)
Автор:
Schiller FriedrichЖанр:
Драматургия;Серия:
3Дата добавления:
2013-11-28Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
81
The Duchess of Malfi
Автор:
John WebsterЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-18Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
27
Description
John Webster was a later contemporary of Shakespeare, and The Duchess of Malfi, Webster’s best known play, is considered among the best of the period. It appears to have been first performed in 1612–13 at the Blackfriars before moving on to the larger and more famous Globe Theatre, and was later published in 1623.
The play is loosely based on a real Duchess of Amalfi, a widow who marries beneath her station. On learning of this, her brothers become enraged and vow their revenge. Soon the intrigue, deceit, and murders begin. Marked by the period’s love of spectacular violence, each character exacts his...
The First Man
Автор:
O'Neill EugeneЖанр:
Драматургия;Серия:
3Дата добавления:
2013-11-27Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
26
The Hairy Ape
Автор:
Eugene O’NeillЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-18Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
17
Description
Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape isn’t one of his best-known works, but it has gained popularity as an exploration of early American society. It was first produced in 1922 by the Provincetown Players in Massachusetts, embracing expressionism in its set design and staging, before moving on to Broadway, where it faced resistance from local and federal governments due to its radical views.
The play examines the existential crisis of the protagonist, a brutish stoker named Yank, who begins the play secure in his role as the leader of firemen on an Atlantic ocean liner. But when confronted by the disdain of an upper-class passenger who calls him a “filthy beast,” he...
The Importance of Being Earnest
Автор:
Oscar WildeДата добавления:
2022-03-19Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
21
Description
The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s most popular play today, enduring thanks to its easy humor, witty dialog, and clever satire. It was also one of his more successful plays, despite its first run being prematurely ended after only 86 performances. The main characters pretend to be other people in order to escape social obligations, with the resulting confusion of identities driving the plot and the humor behind it.
Earnest also holds the sad distinction of being Wilde’s last published play. A feud with an aristocrat whose son was Wilde’s lover led to a court case revealing Wilde as a homosexual—a crime in those days, and punishable by imprisonment...
The Jew of Malta
Автор:
Christopher MarloweЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-17Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
21
Description
Christopher Marlowe wrote The Jew of Malta at the height of his career, and it remained popular until England’s theaters were closed by Parliament in 1642. Many have critiqued it for its portrayal of Elizabethan antisemitism, but others argue that Marlowe criticizes Judaism, Islam, and Christianity equally for their hypocrisy. This antisemitism debate continues on to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, which was written about ten years later and which some consider to be directly influenced by The Jew of Malta.
The play focuses on a wealthy Jewish merchant named Barabas who lives...
The Maid of Orleans (play)
Автор:
Schiller FriedrichЖанр:
Драматургия;Серия:
3Дата добавления:
2013-11-28Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
63
The Merchant of Venice
Автор:
William ShakespeareДата добавления:
2022-03-16Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
22
Description
The young venetian noble Bassanio seeks to woo the beautiful heiress Portia of Belmont. He turns to his friend, a merchant named Antonio, who agrees to help him financially. They go to a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, who agrees to lend the money—but because of their mutual animosity, Shylock demands “A pound of flesh” from Antonio as collateral.
Bassanio succeeds in winning Portia’s hand. Meanwhile, Antonio’s ships are reported lost at sea, and he defaults on the loan. Bassanio rushes back to Venice to help his benefactor where everything comes to a head in Court.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe...
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Автор:
William ShakespeareЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-18Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
25
Description
First published in 1602 by William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor features the popular figure Sir John Falstaff, who first appeared in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. Some speculate that Merry Wives was written at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I, who wanted to see Falstaff in love; and that Shakespeare was forced to rush its creation as a result, and so it remains one of Shakespeare’s lesser-regarded plays.
The play revolves around two intertwined plots: the adventures of the rogue Falstaff who plans to seduce several local wives, and the story of young Anne Page who is being wooed by prominent citizens while she has her sights set on...
The Piccolomini (play)
Автор:
Schiller FriedrichЖанр:
Драматургия;Серия:
3Дата добавления:
2013-11-28Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
52
The Playboy of the Western World
Автор:
J. M. SyngeЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-18Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
22
Description
A young man stumbles into a rural public house in western Ireland claiming to be on the run after having killed his father. He immediately becomes a source of awe and an object of adoration, and even love. But what happens when the inhabitants of this tiny village find out all is not as the stranger claims?
J. M. Synge first presented The Playboy of the Western World at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin on the 26th of January, 1907. The performance immediately offended Irish nationalists by seemingly insulting the Irish people and language, and the general public, by being an offense against moral order. Before it was even finished, it was disrupted by a riot that soon...
The Power of Darkness
Автор:
Leo TolstoyЖанр:
Драматургия;Дата добавления:
2022-03-17Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
28
Description
The Power of Darkness is a five-act drama that follows the downfall of the peasants Anísya and Nikíta as they succumb to a series of sordid temptations, from adultery and drunkenness to outright murder. Written in 1886 but suppressed by censors until 1902, the play is a realist portrayal of some of the darkest elements of Russian peasant life. Similar to some other late Tolstoy works, like Resurrection, the play’s psychological exploration of human depravity is accompanied by a sharp social critique of the Russian Empire and its role in perpetuating poverty and ignorance among its lowest...
The Robbers
Автор:
Schiller FriedrichЖанр:
Драматургия;Серия:
3Дата добавления:
2013-11-28Язык книги:
EnglishКол-во страниц:
37